Western Funding for National Workers: Let the

Buyer Beware
East-West Church and Ministry Report, Jan 01, 1996.

Craig Ott

In light of the skyrocketing costs of sending missionaries, more and

more churches and individuals are supporting national pastors and
evangelists, who generally require a fraction of the support of Western
missionaries. These native workers not only cost less but know the
language and culture of their people, and they often have access to
countries closed to traditional Western missionaries. A careful study of
the history and theology of missions will, however, reveal that financial
support of national pastors and evangelists is fraught with dangers. In
fact, such well-intended subsidies often weaken receiving churches
and undermine world evangelization in the longer term. Think twice
before you start supporting nationals in your missions giving, and
consider the following dangers.

Nine Reservations
1. Western support of native workers is a model that national
churches cannot reproduce. To be effective, any missionary
strategy must be reproducible. Missionaries normally try to model
ministry that national believers and churches can both carry on after
the foreigners leave and reproduce in further evangelism. In this way
the missionary multiplies his or her efforts, and the gospel's spread
does not depend on foreign presence or assistance. Western funding of
native workers is a model nationals can never reproduce themselves
because it, by definition, depends on outside funding. As a result,
churches will tend to assume that seeking support from mission
agencies or partnerships with wealthy Western churches is the normal
way to support pastors and send missionaries. Success in ministry
becomes tied to Western purse strings. To reproduce themselves,
native churches much discover creative ways to spread the gospel and
plant churches without outside support.

2. Such a strategy is based on the assumption that the spread

of the gospel depends on money. Making the fulfillment of the

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Great Commission dependent on the church's ability to raise money is
a fallacy Western Christians have uncritically, unconsciously accepted.
It reflects our Western materialism and commitment to a
professionalized ministry.

3. It can create dependency and stunt giving in national

churches. Teaching churches to depend on Western resources can
blind them to recognizing their own giving potential or seeking creative
ways to overcome obstacles by trusting God. The history of missions is
replete with sad stories of resentments created when developing
churches became dependent on Western funding. Any giving to
mission churches or native workers must answer two questions: "Will
this stimulate or discourage local giving?" "Will it create unhealthy
dependency and foreign dominance, or help the church mature and
become self-sustaining?"

4. Heavy dependence on Western funds can reinforce feelings

of inferiority. Western support of native pastors and evangelists and
the resulting dependency strengthens the belief that only Western
Christians have the resources to evangelize and maintain their
churches. Such support can result in a new form of the old
paternalism. Giving that creates dependency is dehumanizing and
oppressive.

5. Western support can create a mercenary spirit among

nationals. While the motives of most national pastors and evangelists
are above reproach, even motives for Christian service can become
easily mixed when a secure and steady income is offered to those
willing to become pastors or evangelists. Competition and jealousy can
arise among believers vying to secure coveted, paid positions in a land
of hunger. Westerners are rarely in a position to discern such motives,
and they all too often tap leaders the nationals would not have chosen.
Churches can become resentful or jealous of other churches receiving
extravagant subsidies due to personal connections.

Eastern European churches, which have learned to survive, and, in

many cases, carry on significant ministries under great hardship, are
now facing the challenges of new freedoms and adjustment to
Westernization and materialism. If not done with the greatest care, the
outpouring of well-intended financial gifts from Western churches could
do much to further confuse and pollute churches that have been
purified by 45 years of Communist oppression.

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All too often native pastors and churches have become preoccupied
with ministries that attract Western dollars, while neglecting more
basic pastoral care and evangelism. A great missionary statesman of
the last century, John L. Nevius, observed how employing native
evangelists in China tended to stop the work of volunteer lay
evangelists, who resented not being paid, thus hindering the natural
spread of the gospel.

6. Foreign-paid workers are not always more effective, and

sometimes are even less effective and credible, than lay
workers. National evangelists are sometimes rejected by their peers
when the latter discover that Westerners pay them. In China they are
called "the white man's running dog." Nationals may judge foreign-
paid evangelists as mercenaries, or even subversives, who have
become Christians and preach the gospel only for the financial
benefits. The Communist Chinese saw subsidies of Chinese churches
and workers as evidence that Christianity was not only a foreign
religion, but an instrument of Western imperialism. The heavy Western
subsidizing of national evangelists and pastors could reproduce these
kinds of suspicions in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe
today.

When national believers fail to support their own workers, the

impression is reinforced that Christianity is in fact a foreign religion
that has neither taken root nor inspired the deep commitment of its
followers. Furthermore, church members can resent a pastor who is
not accountable to them because his salary is paid by a foreign
mission or church. This danger is especially great today, as some
North American churches have started directly supporting pastors of
poorer Eastern European churches, bypassing the local congregations
those pastors serve.

7. It can rob the national church of the joy of being a truly

missionary church. When the Evangelical Free Churches of
Venezuela caught a vision to send their first missionary to do tribal
work, they sought assistance from the North American mother
mission. The mission leaders responded, "If you are to be a truly
missionary church, you must send them and support them
yourselves." At first the Venezuelans didn't understand. However, they
raised the necessary support and there was tremendous joy because
the Venezuelans saw how God provided and knew that they had
become a truly multiplying, missionary church.

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8. Employing national missionaries may not be the bargain it
appears. To avoid the mistakes of the past and to increase their
effectiveness, missionaries must have careful preparation and training.
Specialized ministries such as Bible translation and medical work
demand extensive training, which normally does not come cheap.
Larry Poston, in Evangelical Missions Quarterly 28 (January 1992), 60,
questions whether native missionaries really can live as cheaply as
some claim, especially in the cities, where the cost of living can be
staggering. Given the fact that the world is rapidly urbanizing, any
long-range strategy must include reaching the urban masses.

9. Sending money instead of missionaries comes dangerously

close to compromising the very essence of the Great
Commission. The Great Commission calls us not only to send dollars,
but ourselves. This will not always be the most economical solution,
but it will be the greatest demonstration of love: We cared enough to
surrender our comfort and way of life to share God's love with others.

Conclusion
I do not mean to underestimate the importance of sacrificial giving.
There is a place for certain types of financial assistance to developing
churches. This article, rather, is a call for discernment in how those
funds are spent. Pragmatism cannot be allowed to overrule spiritual
principles and blind us to the lessons of history. Short-term gains can
sometimes mean long-term disaster.

Craig Ott is a missionary with the Evangelical Free Church of America

and the Federation of Free Evangelical Churches in Germany.

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